An Introduction to Yoga

meant by the methods of Yoga Derived from the Sanskrit root 'yuj', meaning to join or unite; here, it refers to a disciplined system for spiritual development.. You study the laws of the unfolding of consciousness in the universe, you then apply them to a special case—and that case is your own. You cannot apply them to another. They must be self-applied. That is the definite principle to grasp. So we must add one more word to our definition: “Yoga is the rational application of the laws of the unfolding of consciousness, self-applied in an individual case.”

YOGA IS A SCIENCE.

Next: Yoga is a science. That is the second thing to grasp. Yoga is a science, and not a vague dreamy drifting or imagining. It is an applied science, a systematised collection of laws applied to bring about a definite end. It takes up the laws of psychology In this context, psychology refers to the study of the soul and the internal workings of the mind rather than just clinical behavior., applicable to the unfolding of the whole consciousness of man on every plane A level of existence or state of being (such as the physical, emotional, or mental worlds)., in every world, and applies those rationally in a particular case. This rational application of the laws of unfolding consciousness acts exactly on the same principles that you see applied around you every day in other departments of science.

You know, by looking at the world around you, how enormously the intelligence of man, co-operating with nature, may quicken ‘natural’ processes, and the working of intelligence is as ‘natural’ as anything else. We make this distinction, and practically it is a real one, between ‘rational’ and ‘natural’ growth, because human intelligence can